Van Gogh's Death Reexamined: New Biography Challenges Suicide Narrative

Vincent van Gogh died on 29 July 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The traditional account, based on testimony from Adeline Ravoux (daughter of the innkeeper at Auberge Ravoux) given in 1953, holds that Van Gogh shot himself in a wheat field on 27 July, returned to the inn, and died two days later. However, Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith in their 2011 biography 'Van Gogh: The Life' argue that Van Gogh was shot, possibly accidentally, by 16-year-old René Secrétan. They cite the nature of the wound, a draft letter to Theo found on Van Gogh, and the absence of early accounts mentioning suicide. René Secrétan, a summer visitor from Paris, owned a small-caliber pistol that often misfired; he later admitted providing the gun but denied shooting Van Gogh. Art historian John Rewald heard rumors in the 1930s that local boys accidentally shot Van Gogh, who chose to protect them. The mystery endures, and the 2017 oil-painted film 'Loving Vincent' by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman explores these unanswered questions.